Malaga hosts recruitment event that can change the lives of more than 600 people in Andalucía

Few people can say that Andalucía's regional minister of employment, the head of Malaga provincial authority, the city's mayor and the chairman of the hiring company all witnessed the moment they got a job. That was the case for 27-year-old Emelyn Avilés, who was born in Honduras and has lived in Nerja for the past eight years.

Until now, she has mainly worked as a self-employed carer providing home help services. From next week, however, she will start working for Clece. "I'm very happy because I haven't worked for five months, since January," she said on Thursday after her interview with the services company.

Emelyn was one of the 650 people that Clece interviewed on Thursday at Malaga's auomobile and fashion museum. Around 150 candidates attended in person, while another 500 from elsewhere in Andalucía took part remotely.

"This is an innovative initiative in our sector and the aim is to create job opportunities for people who need them most and who are going through difficulties," Clece's regional director for southern Spain Javier Gallego told SUR.

"In short, we want to help disadvantaged groups such as women who have suffered gender-based violence, the long-term unemployed, people with disabilities or those at risk of social exclusion," he said.

Clece had already carried out preliminary work with many of the 650 candidates, who came through third-sector organisations, meaning that a large number of interviews were expected to lead directly to jobs.

"For the past three weeks, we have carried out a pre-selection process and coordinated these interviews," Gallego said. "In Andalucía, we have 140 agreements with organisations such as the Red Cross, Cáritas, Arrabal and Corazón y Manos, which is an association made up of Clece employees."

"The idea is for people to leave here with immediate and tangible job offers. Today is going to be an important day for many of those attending. Many people will walk out with contracts in their hands," Gallego said.

Among those waiting for an interview was 56-year-old Joy Osazuwa, who is Nigerian and has lived in Malaga for more than 30 years. She has worked in home care, cleaning, professional hairdressing and butchery. She said she felt very excited about the opportunity.

In a similar situation was 24-year-old Francisco Javier García, who currently works as a tattoo artist making house calls. He hopes to secure a cleaning job. "The only world I know is art, and now I'm applying for a job," he said. "I have an employment adviser because I haven't been able to find work on my own."

After his interview, Francisco Javier came out smiling. "It went really well. They told me they'll call me," he said.

While the interviews took place, local and regional officials joined Clece executives to explain the initiative, which goes beyond the 650 people interviewed on Thursday. That figure reflected the maximum number organisers could see in a single day. Overall, Clece expects to make around 1,000 hires.

"Some contracts will cover temporary replacements and others will be permanent, but ultimately we want most of them to become permanent positions," Gallego said. "Today we'll probably hire home care workers, which is a sector experiencing huge demand right now, but we also need cleaners, security guards, gardening staff and maintenance workers."

Clece chairman Cristóbal Valderas said the company had helped integrate 58,000 people from disadvantaged backgrounds into the workforce in recent years, including 10,600 in Andalucía and 2,500 in Malaga province.

"We are a company with a very strong social and NGO profile," he said. "We maintain a balance between financial performance and social commitment."

Representatives from all levels of government attended the event. Malaga provincial authority president Francisco Salado highlighted that one of the organisation's largest contracts is with Clece.

"We support more than 6,000 people in small towns and villages," he said. "Finding professionals who can help the people who need it most is essential. We are particularly interested in small municipalities and in having carers who live locally because that makes everything easier. It also helps tackle depopulation by creating jobs inland. These recruitment events are very productive and we need to keep repeating them," Salado stated.

Regional employment minister Rocío Blanco described the event as "the best example of cooperation and coordination between public authorities and private companies".

"The latest data indicates that more than a third of unemployed people in Spain have been looking for work for over a year, not only those seeking employment for the first time, but also people who are currently outside the labour market and want to re-enter it. We are talking about people with disabilities, those over 45, the long-term unemployed, women and migrants," she said.

Addressing the issue, she added, is "a shared responsibility". "Public administrations do not create jobs, but they do have a duty to act as a lever for vulnerable groups who struggle to access the labour market," Blanco said.

She also referred to a previous event of the same initiative in Seville, where 90 per cent of interviewees found work. "A job is not just a payslip," she concluded. “A job is the best antidote to inequality and the best tool for social inclusion."

Malaga Mayor Francisco de la Torre closed the speeches by stressing Clece's links to ACS, one of Spain's largest infrastructure and construction groups. "Clece belongs entirely to ACS, a powerful company that, for me, represents Spain as a brand," he said.

"ACS employs 180,000 people. It projects the image of a major international company involved in construction and infrastructure around the world, strengthening the prestige of Spanish engineering," the mayor stated. "It is also important to highlight the smaller, more human side, the sensitivity that gives Clece its strength. Behind it stands a major company that shows genuine social awareness."

The mayor ended by describing the initiative as an example of "teaching people how to fish instead of giving them fish".